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Saturday, November 7, 2009

This is a list of on-line tools that can be used in education. It is an extensive list with many ways of application. The list is not complete.

Bookmarking Tools
Clip Clip www.clipclip.com
-> ClipClip is, essentially, a social bookmarking tool that allows you to save and collect the sites and stuff you treasure most.
you can ‘clip’ pictures, applications, and paragraphs without having to take from the whole website itself.
ClipClip works, more or less, as your own personal scrapbook.

Del.icio.us http://del.icio.us
-> Delicious is a social bookmarking service that allows users to tag, save, manage and share web pages from a centralized source. With emphasis on the power of the community -
Bookmark any site on the Internet, and get to it from anywhere
Share your bookmarks, and get bookmarks in return
Discover the most useful and interesting bookmarks on the web

Diigo www.diigo.com
-> Diigo provides a browser add-on that can really improve your research productivity. As you read on the web, instead of just bookmarking, you can highlight portions of web pages that are of particular interest to you.
Moreover, all the information -- highlighted paragraphs, sticky notes, and the original url -- are saved on Diigo servers, creating your personal digest of the web, your own collection of highlights from the web - ones that are meaningful to you! You can easily search, access, sort and share this collection from any PC or even iPhone.
You can easily share your findings, complete with your highlights and sticky notes, with friends and colleagues. A project team, a class, or a club can create a group on Diigo to pool relevant resources, findings and thoughts together.

Copyright Free Digital Photos I use a few of these depending on the photo I need - Great for PowerPoints Comp Fight http://www.compfight.com
-> This has an excellent Creative Commons search engine

Copyright Free http://www.copyrightfreephotos.com
-> The copyright (royalty) free photos available on this site have been made available, free of charge, for any application as you require - web design, graphics, backgrounds, printed images, desktop wallpaper & screensavers. The only exception is that images may NOT be added to other photo libraries (either online or offline) - without written permission from the site owner.

Copyright Friendly http://copyrightfriendly.wikispaces.com
-> Most of the media in the collections are attached to generous copyright licensing. Though you may not need to ask permission to use them when publishing on the Web for educational purposes, you should cite or attribute these images to their creators unless otherwise notified!

Free Foto http://www.freefoto.com/index.jsp
-> FreeFoto.com is made up of 127417 images with 168 sections organized into 3485 categories.
Non-commercial users may download our web size images to use off-line in school projects, church services, cards, leaflets, etc. Basically if your off-line use is not commercial you can download our web size images for free.

Ideas Wisconsin www.ideas.wisconsin.edu
-> All of the images in the imageide@s repository are free for educators to use within their classrooms.

Library of Congress http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/index.html
-> The mission of the Library of Congress is to make its resources available and useful to the Congress and the American people. It does not charge permission fees for use of such material and generally does not grant or deny permission to publish or otherwise distribute material in its collections.

Pics4Learning www.pics4learning.com
-> Pics4Learning is a copyright-friendly image library for teachers and students. The Pics4Learning collection consists of thousands of images that have been donated by students, teachers, and amateur photographers.

Public Domain Pictures http://www.publicdomainpictures.net
-> PublicDomainPictures.net is a repository for free public domain photos. You can upload your own pictures and share your work with others.

Teacher Tap http://eduscapes.com/tap/topic98.htm
-> This page provides links to some of the better copyright-free and public domain resources. Are intended for educators and librarians who wish to locate quality, copyright-friendly materials for educational, noncommercial, and nonprofit projects.

Capturing Programs CamStudio http://camstudio.org/ -> CamStudio is able to record all screen and audio activity on your computer and create industry-standard AVI video files and using its built-in SWF Producer can turn those AVIs into lean, mean, bandwidth-friendly Streaming Flash videos (SWFs) -------ITS FREE

eSnips www.esnips.com
-> eSnips is for anyone who has anything they want to share with others - eSnips is based on sharing your digital your content

Jing www.jingproject.com
-> Jing is free software that - snaps a picture of your screen, record a video of your screen and can be shared over the internet. It combines chat and media.

Kwout http://kwout.com
-> "kwout" is a way you quote a part of a web page as an image with an image map. It is a Browser plugin. By dragging a mouse on the screenshot, select an area you wish to quote, and click the "Cut Out" button. Then the area you selected will be cut out as an image with an image map (hyperlinks).

File2 http://file2.ws
-> File2.ws is a free website that converts any of your own files into a public online web page. Every converted file to a web page has a unique web address so you can share it with friends, or other people on the internet.

Read The Words http://readthewords.com
-> ReadTheWords.com is a free, web based service that assists people with written material. Users of our service can generate a clear sounding audio file from almost any written material. It generates a voice that reads the words out loud, that you request us to read.

Sumopaint http://www.sumopaint.com/home
->Sumo Paint is a full featured photo editing / painting application, which works right in your favorite web browser! The application can be used in Windows, Macintosh or Linux operating systems. The only requirement is the Flash Player (which usually comes preinstalled in any OS). sumopaint.com is a thriving online art community of over a 4 million unique users and over 100 000 registered members from over 200 countries. The primary purpose of the community is to create, share, remix, explore, comment, rate and fave the artwork of its members.

Digital Photo Project Tools 360 Cities http://www.360cities.net -> What does it do? It mashes panaramic images with maps. Show the world to a wide audience in a new way. Create guides that let you step inside. Provide a place for the World's best panoramic photographers to gather. Let you experience places you have never been before.

Issuu http://issuu.com
-> A world of publications by people and publishers alike. Collect, share and publish in a format designed to make your documents look their very best. Good site for students learning design.

Mapvivo http://mapvivo.com
-> bring journeys to life by sharing images, text and video, and placing them together on a virtual map

Museum Box http://museumbox.e2bn.org
-> This site provides the tools for you to build up an argument or description of an event, person or historical period by placing items in a virtual box. What items, for example, would you put in a box to describe your life; the life of a Victorian Servant or Roman soldier; or to show that slavery was wrong and unnecessary? You can display anything from a text file to a movie.

Mutapic http://www.mutapic.com
-> Mutapic is an online picture generator. It is a free tool you can use to rapidly create original art.
Good creative play / fun

Splashr http://splashr.com
-> Splashr is a tool for presenting Flickr photos. Quick to use - limited in creativity

Stupflix http://www.stupeflix.com
-> Stupeflix technology produces videos encoded in your favourite format in no time then integrated within minutes in your website.

Tabblo www.tabblo.com
-> A good online application for putting together photos and words with styled templates that can be customized by the author for the purpose of telling a story.

Tourist Remover http://www.snapmania.com/info/en/trm
-> A neat tool. Take multiple photos from the same scene and the «Tourist Remover» blends them into a composite photo without any interfering elements.This effectively removes annoying objects such as tourists or passing cars from your photos.

Virtual Tour Creator http://www.mapwing.com
-> Use Mapwing to turn your digital photos into virtual tours that include interactive maps, images, and comments. Good for navigating through a series of images.

Voice Thread http://voicethread.com
-> A great collaboration, visualisation or make meaning tool. A VoiceThread is a collaborative, multimedia slide show that holds images, documents, and videos and allows people to navigate pages and leave comments in 5 ways - using voice (with a mic or telephone), text, audio file, or video (via a webcam). Share a VoiceThread with friends, students, and colleagues for them to record comments too.

Picture Trail http://www.picturetrail.com
-> BiggestFill out this form to create a chat room immediately – only for you and people you invite. It’s as quick and easy as writing an email! slideshow selection on the web! Post them to any webpage!

Sliderocket http://sliderocket.com
-> "SlideRocket is a revolutionary new approach to presentations. It's the only presentation software that allows you to create stunning presentations, manage them intelligently, share them securely and then measure the results. ..."

Scriblink http://www.scriblink.com
-> Scriblink is a free digital whiteboard that users can share online in real-time. Sorta like pen and paper, minus the dead trees, plastic, and the inconvenience of being at the same place at the same time.

Bo Jam http://www.bojam.com
-> "Bojammers" upload or record their original tracks into our dynamic library of instrumental and vocal tracks and use our Web-based recording studio to create new music by adding and editing tracks contributed by other musicians.

Audacity http://audacity.sourceforge.net
-> Audacity® is free, open source software for recording and editing sounds. It is available for Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows, GNU/Linux, and other operating systems. Excellent student audio editing tool.

Grooveshark http://listen.grooveshark.com
-> Grooveshark -- Listen to Free Music Internet Radio and Free MP3 Streaming.
Listen to any song in the world for free.

Kiss Tunes www.kisstunes.com
-> Play and record tunes online using your QWERTY keyboard, and share them with family and friends! CREATIVE

Trakax http://www.trakax.com/software/pc/download
-> TrakPack Royalty-free Music Collection TrakAx empowers you to create professional music and video mixes in an easy-to-use and fun environment. Whether you are creating a music track for your MySpace page or a video for YouTube, TrakAxPC is the most powerful FREE application on the web. Download Now - It's Free!

Photo Hosting and Sharing
Ask 500 People http://www.ask500people.com
-> Ask a question and someone will answer it - wisdom of the crowd - novel.

Chatzy www.chatzy.com
-> Fill out this form to create a chat room immediately – only for you and people you invite. It’s as quick and easy as writing an email!Chatzy has no registration steps - your friends can join instantly - a good tool.

Clocking It http://www.clockingit.com
-> ClockingIT is a free hosted application, keeping track of all your tasks and the time you spend on them. Extensive features Project Management, Collaboration and Time Tracking ...and it's free!

Doodle www.doodle.ch
-> The world’s leading online scheduling tool, Doodle takes the pain out of finding the right date and time for a group of people to meet and makes scheduling virtually effortless. The basic service is a free online coordination tool which requires neither registration nor software installation.

Jiffy http://www.jifflenow.com
-> Jiffle™ makes scheduling appointments and meetings quick and simple. Jiffle now integrates with Google calendar and it is free! Webex users can now use Jiffle to help schedule Webex meetings.

Poll Everywhere http://www.polleverywhere.com
-> Classroom Response System Plans for K-12. Class size of 32 free. Students can vote or send messages using whatever any device they own.

Remember the Milk http://www.rememberthemilk.com
-> Managing tasks is generally not a fun way to spend your time. We created Remember The Milk so that you no longer have to write your to-do lists on sticky notes, whiteboards, random scraps of paper, or the back of your hand. Works with iphone & android. Looks Good.

Todays Meet http://todaysmeet.com
-> This is an excellent backchannel of communication. Imagine you're giving a presentation where you can read the mind of every person in the room. You'd have an amazing ability to adjust to your audience's needs and emotions. GREAT TOOL.

Tokbox http://www.tokbox.com
-> Record a video and send it to anyone with an email address - works with IM services.

Students
15 Essential Tools for Students http://mashable.com/2009/09/03/web-apps-students
-> List of 10 ToolsEvernote is one of the best note taking applications available, allowing you to sync notes between the web, your phone, and any computer.Notely is a complete, end-to-end solution for taking notes and staying organized.GradeMate is a free online organizer made with students in mind. With it you can create to-do lists, manage due dates, keep track of grades, and even collaborate with fellow students.Backpack is also a great way for students to keep research organized. Backpack is sort of like a single page wiki that lets you keep files, images, notes, and to-do lists in a single place and share them with fellow students (which is great for collaborative projects).

Child Net http://www.childnet-int.org
-> Welcome to Childnet International, a non-profit organisation working with others to “help make the Internet a great and safe place for children”.

E-Learning Kids http://www.e-learningforkids.org
-> Our all-volunteer staff consists of committed education and e-learning experts and business professionals from around the world. For students aged up to 12.

Kideos http://www.kideos.com
-> Online Video - Kideos is the premier destination for kids to safely watch videos online. Each video on Kideos has been screened by our Video Advisory Council before it makes it onto our site.

My School Log http://www.myschoolog.com
-> mySchoolog is an online web-based application to organize your school life easily. You can easily organize everything about your school life with mySchoolog.

Sketchcast http://sketchcast.com
-> Record a sketch with or without voice. Explain something, have fun, or create art. Then embed it in a blog

Story Bird http://storybird.com
-> Storybirds are short, visual stories that you make with family and friends to share

Toon Doo http://www.toondoo.com
-> ToonDoo is a cool, comic-creating tool from Jambav, a fun site for kids. Jambav is devoted to creating a unique array of free and customizable online games of educational value for children of all abilities. LOOKS FUN

Wordle www.wordle.net
-> Wordle is a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text.
and the list goes on ..........................................

Saturday, October 10, 2009

Holy Joe: Laughing ClownsLaughing Clowns are an Australian post punk rock band fronted by vocalist and guitarist Ed Kuepper and backed by drummer Jeff Wegener.

Formed in Sydney in 1979 after the break-up of Kuepper's punk rock band The Saints. Where The Saints were a bass/drums/guitar rock band, Laughing Clowns' various line-ups included double bass, piano, tenor saxophone and trumpet. Often referred to as "jazz punk" by critics, the group's songs were often constructed around difficult time signatures and sometimes "off-key" melodies. Kuepper passionately disagreed with the assertion that the music was jazz-like, but rather thought of the music as being soul-like. This is evidenced by the fact that, in amongst the cachophony, many of the songs have strong melodic hooks, epic progressions and emotionally charged lyrics. They released several albums, singles and EPs, including Holy Joe, Mr Uddich-Smuddich goes to town, Ghosts of an ideal wife and Law of nature. They disbanded in 1985 with Kuepper continuing to record and perform under his own name.

Nothing grows in Texas: Sacred CowboysThe ‘Sacred Cowboys’ front man is Garry Gray (lead singer/lyricist), who as a member of the 'Negatives' (1977-1979) and the 'Reals' (1975-1976) was a pioneer of alternative music in Melbourne, Australia. He was a founding member of the 'Sacred Cowboys' in 1982.The 'Sacred Cowboys' began playing inner city Melbourne in early 1982. Within six months, the 'Cowboys' signed with Mushroom/White Label and recorded the 'Nothing Grows In Texas' single. After their so-called 'legendary performance' on Molly Meldrum's Countdown pop TV show on the ABC, Molly said, "This is the worst group I've seen in 5 years." This set the tone for their long career as one of Australia's seminal alternative groups.

Death Death Death: TISMTISM (an acronym of This Is Serious Mum) is a seven piece anonymous alternative rock band from Melbourne, Australia. The group was formed in 1982 and enjoyed a large underground/independent following. TISM have always used a variety of methods to conceal their identities. They have never officially revealed their names, instead choosing to use pseudonyms on their records and in interviews, all the while concealing their faces. Usually this involves the wearing of a balaclava, but ridiculous costumes have been created for the purpose, including Ku Klux Klan uniforms made of newspaper,[29] silver suits with puffy arms and legs to mimic an inflated cask wine bladder,[29] giant foam paintings worn on the head,[29] large foam signs bearing the name of a Beatle,[30] fat 'businessman' suits,[29] and eight-foot-high inflatable headpieces,[7] among others.

Who TISM are beneath the masks has been the cause of much speculation by fans, with one theory contending that TISM is composed of members of other bands who do not want their fans to find out: popular targets of this theory include Painters and Dockers, Machine Gun Fellatio and even The Wiggles.[31][32][33] A theory based on the band's tour schedule's roughly coinciding with school holidays proposes that TISM are school teachers.

God's Not Dead: The SlaughtermenThe Slaughtermen were an Australian post-punk southern gospel group, which began in Melbourne in 1984.The band enjoyed a years residency at the Rising Sun Hotel in Melbourne which built a fairly even following of believers and sceptics. Singer Ian Stephen, only added to the mystique and/or confusion by purchasing a twenty five dollar Reverendship from a religious organization from out of the back pages of the National Enquirer. A nationally broadcast hour long live concert on Australia's ABC TV, cemented their unique place to this day, as Australia's first and only southern gospel group, albeit twelve thousand miles from the original source of the inspiration, America's Deep South.

Nick the Stripper: The Birthday PartyThe Birthday Party was an Australian post-punk group, active from 1976 to 1983.

Despite being championed by John Peel, The Birthday Party found little commercial success during their career. Though often indirect, their influence has been far-reaching. They've been called one of "the darkest and most challenging post-punk groups to emerge in the early '80s."

Thursday, September 10, 2009

The digital world is moving fast. Public access to the Internet was only just over a decade ago. It has just left Primary School. It is a noisy Middle Schooler but will it get a completed Yr 12 score? Is the illusion about to bypass it?

Friday, August 28, 2009

http://bighugelabs.com offers a number of fun toys. The movie poster is a simple web 2.0 toy that is easy to complete, is fun and has a good output.Make your own customized movie poster.You choose the photo, titles, and credits. Be a star!

What a great tool for students with low literacy or of an ESL classification. All that is required is an image, a title, subtexts plus some credit text - plus some imagination and creativity.

Movie poster follows the KISS principal - Keep it simple stupid - however a small unit of work can be wrapped around the tool.

Please modify this to suit the Movie Poster technology and the class context.

Start off by asking the class if they would like to see a movie together. Almost certainly, one student will say yes. Ask them what is playing and write down their answers word for word on the board. You can examine their responses shortly. Then ask them what it is about, again writing the answers on the board. Then ask them who's starring in it and what the critics say about it.

Hopefully, they will be using some of the sentence structure from part I (if you did part I). But if they didn't, you can take this opportunity to compare what they could have said with what they actually said on the board. You can highlight all of the key phrases for talking about movies. In particular you can also show how relative clauses are useful for describing movies, plots, and characters. (It's about two people who fall in love on a sinking ship. Leonardo Di Caprio plays a poor worker who wins a trip to America.)

Next, handout the activity sheet and go over the dialogue. Point out the language that's used in the dialogue to talk about movies. Then write up the table on the board and with the class fill out the table for the movie 'Attack from Planet Q'.

Title/Genre:

Attack from Planet Q

Science Fiction

Actor/Character:

Will Smith

Palace guard

Plot:

Aliens invade China

Show times/ Theater

6:45, 8:30

Odeon Theater

Setting:

Great Wall of China,

Ming Dynasty

Critics/Awards:

Frightening, Entertaining

Best Film 2002 Cannes

Now give each student in the class a movie poster. Ask them to memorize the contents of the poster (without actually memorizing it word for word). After they have had some time to read their movie poster they will walk around the class and practice the dialogue. While they are practicing the dialogue, they should fill out the table.

Friday, July 24, 2009

Innovation require a person to move into a new dimension. This dimension requires a person to disassociate from past experiences. Past experiences are the comfort zone and comfort zones are in effect conformity zones. When a person conforms the person remains static. The norm is the conformity which is the comfort zone. Introduction of a new method, idea and or system into a comfort zone creates anxiety, stress and fear. Sameness is safe, is effortless and is comfortable. Innovation is disruptive. Innovation rips at the individual patterns woven from past experiences. To lead innovation is to take people a significant distance from their past experiences to enable perspective based questions. However in today's environment of continuous disruption leaders must not allow new comfort zones to be established. Continuous disruption requires continuous Innovation which requires continual disassociation from the past.

Working within an innovative project requires continual changing of perspectives and establishing flexible and future focussed mindsets. Each individual in an innovative project needs a mindset to enable ongoing and continuous disruption. 'Past Experiences Comfort Zone' is a syndrome that counteracts innovation.

Leading educators from traditional methodologies requires the removal of comfort zones. Educators have been comfortable within a similar zone of teaching since the start of public education. The slate tablet may have changed few times, class sizes have grow and shrink but the situation hasn't changed. Education is still operating within the behaviourist sphere. Workers to the left and academics to the right. The filtering system remains and the poor struggle. This comfort zone in education is a trap and a refuge. Educators have been comfortable in this zone despite the growing ineffectualness of the zone. Collective innovation within educational systems has been in large a dismal failure. Schools have been great places in facilitating comfort zones and poor places for establishing continual innovation. Educational systems have focussed on restructuring which results schools moving from one comfort zone to another comfort zone. The result is that the demands society is placing on schools and innovative response has been insufficient. Schools are fundamentally frozen by comfort. Any innovation is greeted with scepticism and a collective fight. Innovation vs Classroom: Classroom wins.

The question is; 'How do leaders lead teachers to explore their outer limits of capability within a innovative project without the retraction to the core past practices and ultimately return to the sameness-comfort zone?”.

The answer is;1.Create inertia. Leaders must be strongly determination.2.Create a vision. Leaders must create a vision. The vision has to be communicated and continually refered to. 3.Create problems. New problems need to be created and solve by creative methods. A new problem cannot be solved by past solutions. New problems require new solutions.4.Introduction of monitoring methods. Effective monitoring will manage innovation. Policies and procedures restrains Innovation. Innovation cannot be regulated. Policies and procedures cannot be created prior to the innovation. Policies and procedures establish the norm and then the comfort zone. Policies and procedures do not encourage risk. Innovation requires risk. Risk needs effective monitoring. Monitoring enables questioning and then answers. Policies and procedures should only be introduced as answers to questions generated by monitoring. 5.Creativity: Establish what is possible and look for opportunity. Look forward and not to the past for what is possible. Visions and Creativity are symbiotic.6.Experiment with something different. Keep bringing in new ideas, new technologies, new methods. Do not all the comfort zone to creep in. Difference enables risk which enables innovation.7.Stretch individual abilities to meet the needs of the innovative project. The project will fail if individual do not extend themselves past past experiences.8.Challenge: Executive and managers must challenge each member of the project team to stretch their individual capacities and to ensure comfort zones are not being established.9.Intellectual honesty: Drill down any substantiated claims that counter innovative progress to establish self-challenge.10.Focus on the edge: Do not focus on the core focus on the edge.Education systems, schools and teachers should be the driving force of innovation in a society and not the comfort zone for ineffective practices. Schools should be future focussed, not fearful of failure, encourage risk taking, create new problems and create new solutions. Teachers should view students as customers. The needs for innovation to be a key reason for schools to exist is more important than ever. For schools to succeed in the innovation space, a methodical approach to monitoring the innovation process is requires not the maintenance of policies and procedures that underpins structural change.